Time for the beach!

This is Miles and his friend Ben at the beach last year. We stayed all day and basked in the sun. That's what my friend Theresa and I expected this year when we drove to Ocean Shores on a day that was supposed to be in the 80's. Well, it was as long as you weren't within 2 miles of the coast. The towels we took weren't used to keep us dry. They were used to keep us warm! Brrrrrr!

So here are Miles and Ben with their alternative beach activity that included asking everyone within sight for a match. What person would give two 11 year old boys matches? Someone did! We gave them permission to ask but still I couldn't believe they were successful. After much preparation they got their fire started despite the wind. Who would have thought they were beginning boy scouts? Oh yeah, except for when they were throwing discarded fireworks into the fire.

Other than the shooting balls of fire we also took advantage of the wind and flew some kites that I brought on a whim. Miles got his going so high you could barely see it....and I got to wind up the string when he was done. Can you get carpal tunnel from kite flying? This beach was a little different than the others I've been to. Cars drove by freely. Not very conducive to sand castle building but we worked around it. I managed to get our car stuck in the sand but thanks to Miles, Ben, and a kind man passing by we were able to get out of that.

Here is a picture of the much anticipated Dora sand castle that Lucy and I built. And yes, those are horses in the background (yet another mode of transportation allowed along the shore). Funnier yet was that all the riders were wearing helmets.

Notice the lack of blue sky. What can I expect from the Pacific Northwest?


Emily and Katie passed the time playing in the sand and seemed to really be enjoying themselves so all in all it was a fun day at the beach.

Gurgle Gurgle

What's up with this rain? I'm not ready for summer to be over. It's been a busy one with vacations and activities. I feel like we've taken advantage of the time together and the nice weather more than we usually do. On the other hand, in summers past I've had my kids doing some kind of academia every weekday. That lasted about 2 weeks this summer then things got busy. So I guess Miles and Emily won't jump back into school as well as they could have but we have a lot of memories that I wouldn't trade.

Last week Matt had to be in Seattle for work. Have you seen that episode of News Radio when Beth is jumping up and down on a bed yelling, "Free hotel room! Free hotel room!"? That's what I was thinking. So we joined him. The weather was perfect. Unfortunately Matt didn't have a lot of free time but we had fun doing things not normally available to us.

There is this fountain in the middle of the shopping district that has a tunnel going through it. The kids loved it and consequently spent the next 30 minutes wet. This place is right by a See's Candy hence the sticks in their mouths.

This is one of hundreds of frightened pigeons blessed by my daughters' presence.

Miles took the gentle approach.

After the pigeons became virtually extinct we took a stroll to the public library. I love that place! My kids spent two hours entertaining themselves in the children's section. And no, I didn't stage this picture. Okay, I suggested they sit there because it would be cool but they were that in to their books.

Lucy entertained us with a puppet show. Next she insisted I perform one so I put down my biography of Molly Brown and entertained myself with my own puppet show. (I also eat Trix cereal on occasion).

I'll let you figure this one out.

You should have seen Miles and Emily trying to hail a taxi when it was time to leave. There were about two cars on the whole street and they were jumping up and down yelling like our house was on fire. I'm surprised any taxi driver thought, "Hey, those kids are good for a fare".

Now what better timing could we have had than to stay in a hotel with plasma screens during the Olympics? That beats our 27 inch screen with rabbit ears. The kids were fascinated and loved cheering on our country's atletes. I think I had just as hard of a time as they did turning it off so we could go to bed. And what hotel stay with children is complete without at least three hours of swimming? I decided swimming at a hotel in the middle of the day is best. You get the whole place to yourself.

The next day we walked down to the aquarium followed by the public market. I had to get some raspberries and peaches...and corn, nectarines, and pluots...and flowers and donuts. Okay so I got a little carried away. How can you not?

I came home from this dream to a clean house (thanks to an unbelieveable amount of help from Miles the day we left) thinking about how much I love my family and how many wonderful opportunities are available to us. Life is good.

To sum it up

Are we really down to 2 weeks before school starts? Summer goes so fast. We had the best vacation spending time with family and friends. Thank you to each of you who made time to get together. We had a blast!
Now for a quick list of some of the things we did...
Of course there's the wedding that I talked about in a previous post followed by our annual camping trip including

canoeing (yes, those raging rapids you see are real),

fishing with cousins,

Yellowstone,

fashion shows,

lunch at the Lion House,

Thanksgiving Point

(again Lucy strikes a pose),

moments of spontaneous excitement,

moments of pure cheese,

archery,

covered wagon rides,

go-cart racing, miniture golf, eating at Cafe Rio, movies, pedicures, driving 40 minutes to buy the best sugar cookies ever made, Kennicott copper mine, eating Bear Lake raspberries and fresh corn, swimming, birthday parties, searching for worms at 10:30 at night (one of Miles' and Emily's favorite memories--thanks Papa), and to end the trip,


a tour through the Twin Falls Temple with the kids on the way home. That was a stop I didn't expect would work. It was wonderful! When we walked into the Celestial room I whispered to Lucy, "Isn't it beautiful?" to which she responded "Even more beautiful than my dress!"
Along with all these great memories, I brought home a nasty cold. Driving such a distance when you feel like your head is going to pop off is not recommended. It was wonderful though reuniting with Matt. We all missed him. Turns out 2 weeks on his own transformed him into someone who actually likes yard work. Now that things are back to normal I'm finding that school starting soon isn't such a bad thing.